Evacuation ships leaving Baltics 1945

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Sat Oct 05, 2002 5:29 pm

I'm trying to find out which Baltic ports still had German ships evacuating injured German soldiers and Baltic refugees back to Germany in late April, early May, 1945. I also need to know which German transport ship (with trains onboard) was en route to Bremerhaven when Germany surrendered. Any help would be appreciated.

Erich · Post by **Erich** » Sun Oct 06, 2002 9:30 am

What references have you been using so far ?

E

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Sun Oct 06, 2002 2:03 pm

I haven't found any references. I was a child onboard a ship en route to Germany when the war ended, and I am trying to find out more details. Do you have information?

Erich · Post by **Erich** » Sun Oct 06, 2002 2:55 pm

Arturs :

I see we are from the same state !

I have some info though it is usually from published sources. An account from a very good friend that left Hela in May of 45 on the freighter Sachsenwald.......would you like to send me a private as the info is in a good size file..... ?

Erich

Jason Pipes · Post by **Jason Pipes** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 12:03 pm

In late April and early May of 1945, the following eastern ports were still "open" and transporting civilians and soldiers to the west.

Windau
Libau
Pillau

The following list is of eastern ports in general and the dates they fell to the Soviets and no longer could be used to evacuate soldiers and civilians.

Windau - fell May 8, 45
Libau - fell May 9, 45
Memel - fell Jan 1, 45
Konigsburg - fell Apr 9, 45
Pillau - fell Apr 25, 45
Braunsberg - fell Mar 30, 45
Elbing - fell Jan 26, 45
Danzig - fell Mar 29, 45
Gotenhafen - fell Mar 29, 45
Oxhoft - fell Mar 29, 45
Stolpmunde - fell Mar 8, 45
Rugenwalde - fell Mar 7, 45
Kolberg - fell Mar 18, 45
Stettin - fell Apr 26, 45
Swnemunde - fell May 5, 45

Erich · Post by **Erich** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 12:19 pm

Excellent Jason ! thank you for the additions.....

Arturs, as I mentioned please check Christoph Awender's site by checking the memberlist and his www signature. Go to the front page and find the blue link to the Handlesmarine. Here you will find some very impressive lists on ships that help evacuate civilian as well as military personell plus the fate of the ships......

E

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 1:03 pm

Jason, good info there. Now I just need to figure out where they are! Don't see any Baltic ports there though. Know anything about those?

Erich, I went to Christoph's website, but unfortunately I can't make the links work right now. I'll try again later.

Thanks!

Jason Pipes · Post by **Jason Pipes** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 1:48 pm

Well, Windau and Libau are Baltic ports, both of them are in Latvia and held out in the Kurland Pocket until the end of the war in May 1945.

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Tue Oct 08, 2002 2:37 pm

Jason, thank you! I need a better map!

Der_Dolmetscher · Post by **Der_Dolmetscher** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 12:24 pm

Excellent topic of discussion.
I posted arequest for information shortly before the message forums changed.
The issue is Swinemunde.
I recently met an ex-forced laborer from Poland, who worked in Swinemunde from 1942-45. He worked at the Marine Ausruestung und RestaurierungsBetrieb in Swinemunde. He doesn't really remember much along the lines of names etc.
He was taken initially to the Gemeinschaftslager Ostswine and later transferred to another camp close by. There he worked under an Oberwaffenwart Eitelborner and was under the jurisdiction of an admiral Jerwinski. He saw the Kreuzer Luetzow and the Cordillera go down qand left with the Kriegsmarine to Kopenhagen just before the german capitulation. the original goal was to blow up the harbor in Denmark to prevent it going to the British.............
He is fuzzy about a few things, but i have more extensive notes with dates etc. What i would like is a little more help with some of the names..
Namley the ships that left Swinemunde to denmark, Jerwinski and Eitelborner are also problematic.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lacplesis · Post by **Lacplesis** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:11 pm

I realize this is a German Army website , but to find places today that were mentioned in WWII you must look for the REAL names. There is no Windau or Lebau in Latvia. Those are names given to cities by the German Invaders and not real. During the occupation they changed city names , streets, Highways, etc to German and then made maps to authenticate them.
Two ships that transported soldiers and refugees from Latvia were "Deutschland" and "Sumatra" in 1944 , 25/26 August.
lacplesis

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:23 pm

lacplesis, Thank you for explaining that. Can you tell me which Baltic ports that I can find on a map were still evacuating in the last days of the war?

Jason Pipes · Post by **Jason Pipes** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:48 pm

Sorry if I hadn't made that part clear, although I wouldn't simpy suggest that they were renamed by the Germans as they were taken over, the names are actually the cities and locations in German rather than in whatever native language the city used to be known by. Much of the Batlic regions had connections to Germany in the middle ages so there were long standing views and names for many areas along the Baltic.

That being said, here are the two Baltic ports still operating in April/May 1945, in German *AND* what they are known as today:

Windau - today is Ventspils
Libau - today is Liepaja

Some others are:

Memel - today is Klaipeda
Kongisburg - today is Kaliningrad
Gotenhafen - today is Gdansk

An excellent source for modern maps of the Baltic region is:

http://www.virtual.lv/maps/baltic500000 ... l_full.htm

Hope this helps!

Arturs · Post by **Arturs** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:59 pm

Thank you! I was thinking Liepaja, and I'm glad to know that my hunch was correct.

Mitch Williamson · Post by **Mitch Williamson** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 2:20 am

Mr Arthurs

I have scanned a map of the convoy routes (eg 82 from Windau 82a from Libau etc...), minefields and Ports used in these operations.

If you send me an e-mail [email protected]

I have some more information and maps if others require.

I will send it to you.

Regards
Mitch

Feldgrau.net

Evacuation ships leaving Baltics 1945

Evacuation ships leaving Baltics 1945

Swinemunde am ende des Krieges....

Map of German Navy in Baltic January-May 1945